181 Aging poems

He wants to be a brutal old man, an aggressive old man, as dull, as brutal as the emptiness around him, He doesn’t want compromise, nor to be ever nice to anyone. Just mean, and final in his brutal, his total, rejection of it all. He tried the sweet, the gentle, the “oh, let’s hold hands together” and it was awful, dull, brutally inconsequential. Now he’ll stand on his own dwindling legs. His arms, his skin, shrink daily. And he loves, but hates equally.

He's still young—; thirty, but looks younger— or does he? . . . In the eyes and cheeks, tonight, turning in the mirror, he saw his mother,— puffy; angry; bewildered . . . Many nights now, when he stares there, he gets angry:— something unfulfilled there, something dead to what he once thought he surely could be— Now, just the glamour of habits . . . Once, instead, he thought insight would remake him, he'd reach —what? The thrill, the exhilaration unravelling disaster, that seemed to teach necessary knowledge . . . became just jargon. Sick of being decent, he craves another crash. What reaches him except disaster?

Hair still Titian, but Botticelli's grip has loosened— not now Rubenesque, and probably never; Ingres approaches, but Courbet might capture me. Could I be surreal? It seems almost likely— bells in my ears and fortresses under; cones have been set on my eyes. My spring is gone and summer's upon me, rude in its ripening. I'm espaliered, strung wide and tied, pinioned, and thus can I fly.

1.   Baseball, I warrant, is not the whole occupation of the aging boy. Far from it: There are cats and roses; there is her water body. She fills the skin of her legs up, like water; under her blouse, water assembles, swelling lukewarm; her mouth is water, her cheekbones cool water; water flows in her rapid hair. I drink water 2.   from her body as she walks past me to open a screen door, as she bends to weed among herbs, or as she lies beside me at five in the morning in submarine light. Curt Davis threw a submarine ball, terrifying to right-handed batters. Another pleasure, thoroughly underrated, is micturition, which is even 3.   commoner than baseball. It begins by announcing itself more slowly and less urgently than sexual desire, but (confusingly) in the identical place. Ignorant men therefore on occasion confuse beer- drinking with love; but I have discussed adultery elsewhere. We allow this sweet release to commence itself, 4.   addressing a urinal perhaps, perhaps poised over a white toilet with feet spread wide and head tilted back: oh, what’delicious permission! what luxury of letting go! what luxe yellow curve of mildest ecstasy! Granted we may not compare it to poignant and crimson bliss, it is as voluptuous as rain all night long 5.   after baseball in August’s parch. The jade plant’s trunk, as thick as a man’s wrist, urges upward thrusting from packed dirt, with Chinese vigor spreading limbs out that bear heavy leaves—palpable, dark, juicy, green, profound: They suck, the way bleacher fans claim inhabitants of box seats do. The Fourth of July we exhaust stars from sparklers in the late 6.   twilight. We swoop ovals of white-gold flame, making quick signatures against an imploding dark. The five-year-old girl kisses the young dog goodbye and chases the quick erratic kitten. When she returns in a few years as a tall shy girl, she will come back to a dignified spreading cat and a dog ash-gray on the muzzle. Sparklers 7.   expel quickly this night of farewell: If they didn’t burn out, they wouldn’t be beautiful. Kurt, may I hazard an opinion on expansion? Last winter meetings, the major leagues (al- ready meager in ability, scanty in starting pitchers) voted to add two teams. Therefore minor league players will advance all too quickly, 8.   with boys in the bigs who wouldn’t have made double-A forty years ago. Directors of player personnel will search like poets scrambling in old notebooks for unused leftover lines, but when was the last time anyone cut back when he or she could expand? Kurt, I get the notion that you were another who never discarded 9.anything, a keeper from way back. You smoked cigarettes, in inflation- times rolled from chopped-up banknotes, billions inhaled and exhaled as cancerous smoke. When commerce woke, Men was awake. If you smoked a cigar, the cigar band discovered itself glued into collage. Ongoing life became the material of Kurtschwittersball.

June 7, 1990 breath, life after seven decades plus three years is a lot of breathing. seventy three years on this earth is a lot of taking in and giving out, is a life of coming from somewhere and for many a bunch of going nowhere. how do we celebrate a poet who has created music with words for over fifty years, who has showered magic on her people, who has redefined poetry into a black world exactness thereby giving the universe an insight into darkroads? just say she interprets beauty and wants to give life, say she is patient with phoniness and doesn’t mind people calling her gwen or sister. say she sees the genius in our children, is visionary about possibilities, sees as clearly as ray charles and stevie wonder, hears like determined elephants looking for food. say that her touch is fine wood, her memory is like an african roadmap detailing adventure and clarity, yet returning to chicago’s south evans to record the journey. say her voice is majestic and magnetic as she speaks in poetry, rhythms, song and spirited trumpets, say she is dark skinned, melanin rich, small-boned, hurricane-willed, with a mind like a tornado redefining the landscape. life after seven decades plus three years is a lot of breathing. gwendolyn, gwen, sister g has not disappointed our expectations. in the middle of her eldership she brings us vigorous language, memory, illumination. she brings breath.

1 nothing to drink in the refrigerator but juice from the pickles come back long dead, or thin catsup. i feel i am old now, though surely i am young enough? i feel that i have had winters, too many heaped cold and dry as reptiles into my slack skin. i am not the kind to win and win. no i am not that kind, i can hear my wife yelling, “goddamnit, quit running over,” talking to the stove, yelling, “i mean it, just stop,” and i am old and 2 i wonder about everything: birds clamber south, your car kaputs in a blazing, dusty nowhere, things happen, and constantly you wish for your slight home, for your wife’s rusted voice slamming around the kitchen. so few of us wonder why we crowded, as strange, monstrous bodies, blindly into one another till the bed choked, and our range of impossible maneuvers was gone, but isn’t it because by dissolving like so much dust into the sheets we are crowding south, into the kitchen, into nowhere?

They got old, they got old and died. But first— okay but first they composed plangent depictions of how much they lost and how much cared about losing. Meantime their hair got thin and more thin as their shoulders went slumpy. Okay but not before the photo albums got arranged by them, arranged with a niftiness, not just two or three but eighteen photo albums, yes eighteen eventually, eighteen albums proving the beauty of them (and not someone else), them and their relations and friends, incontrovertible playing croquet in that Bloomington yard, floating on those comic inflatables at Dow Lake, giggling at the Dairy Queen, waltzing at the wedding, building a Lego palace on the porch, holding the baby beside the rental truck, leaning on the Hemingway statue at Pamplona, discussing the eternity of art in that Sardinian restaurant. Yes! And so, quite frankly—at the end of the day— they got old and died okay sure but quite frankly how much does that matter in view of the eighteen photo albums, big ones thirteen inches by twelve inches each full of such undeniable beauty?

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'' Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall?" Not that, admiring stars, It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!" Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast? Rejoice we are allied To That which doth provide And not partake, effect and not receive! A spark disturbs our clod; Nearer we hold of God Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe! For thence,—a paradox Which comforts while it mocks,— Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. What is he but a brute Whose flesh has soul to suit, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? To man, propose this test— Thy body at its best, How far can that project thy soul on its lone way? Yet gifts should prove their use: I own the Past profuse Of power each side, perfection every turn: Eyes, ears took in their dole, Brain treasured up the whole; Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn?" Not once beat "Praise be Thine! I see the whole design, I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: Perfect I call Thy plan: Thanks that I was a man! Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!" For pleasant is this flesh; Our soul, in its rose-mesh Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest; Would we some prize might hold To match those manifold Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best! Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!" Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage, Life's struggle having so far reached its term: Thence shall I pass, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a god though in the germ. And I shall thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone Once more on my adventure brave and new: Fearless and unperplexed, When I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armour to indue. Youth ended, I shall try My gain or loss thereby; Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: And I shall weigh the same, Give life its praise or blame: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. For note, when evening shuts, A certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the grey: A whisper from the west Shoots—"Add this to the rest, Take it and try its worth: here dies another day." So, still within this life, Though lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, This rage was right i' the main, That acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made: So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid! Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last! Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? Not on the vulgar mass Called "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,— Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. What though the earlier grooves, Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim, Skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I,—to the wheel of life With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: So, take and use Thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Anna Bell and Lane, eighty, make small leaf piles in the heat, each pile a great joint effort, like fifty years of marriage, sharing chores a rusty dance. In my own yard, the stacks are big as children, who scatter them, dodge and limbo the poke of my rake. We’re lucky, young and straight-boned. And I feel sorry for the couple, bent like parentheses around their brittle little lawn. I like feeling sorry for them, the tenderness of it, but only for a moment: John glides in like a paper airplane, takes the children for the weekend, and I remember, they’re the lucky ones— shriveled Anna Bell, loving her crooked Lane.

We take our last walk. Walls stripped of portraits, warped mirrors, dressing tables, and the grandfather clock with its stoic face and elaborate gentle fingers. For years we struggled to break free of the closeness of rooms, the obligation of birth order, the metaphysics that bind one element to the other, as if we were still wild girls playing wild rover in the garden, breaking through a chain of linked hands.